Floral print skirt worn by a Polish Jewish girl living with an assumed identity

Renia Sperber was born on December 2, 1930, in Malnow, Poland (Malinovka, Ukraine), to George (Getzel) and Freda Keltz Sperber. Georg was born on December 27, 1895, in Mosciska. Freda was born circa 1893 in Malnow to Hersh and Sarah Schwannenfeld Kelz, and had 4 siblings, all emigrating to the US before the war. Reina’s sister, Henia, was born in 1928, and a brother, David, was born in 1933. The Sperber’s had a farm and owned a general store. It was a comfortable, religious household. Renia spoke Polish, Ukrainian, and Yiddish and had private lessons in German and Hebrew. In September 1939, Malnow was occupied by the Soviet Union. In June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Soon after, four Ukrainian youths broke into the house and beat Renia’s father with rubber hoses; he never recovered from the injuries. It was a summer of fear and the family hid in nearby fields and barns. Their house was taken by a neighbor, Frankiw Yurko. All Jews were ordered to report to Mosciska. They had heard of the killings that took place there: her paternal grandmother Tzirl, uncle and wife, Ayzik and Balcia, and their four children, had been shot. Renia’s parents decided to send the sisters to Germany under false identities as non-Jewish Ukrainian laborers. Freda’s friend, Kaska Kozowa, gave Renia a birth certificate in her daughter’s name, Marja. Another friend, Ivan Panylyk, obtained false papers for Henia, identifying her as Pelagia Halakjo. The Jews of Malnow were killed or deported by December. The girls hid in the Panylyk home until Ivan took them to the train station on December 4th. They went to Lwow where all arrivals were interrogated by Ukrainian collaborators. Renia saw Jewish women dragged away for pretending to be non-Jewish Poles or Ukrainians. The girls separated to avoid suspicion. Renia was asked to cross herself, and when she did, was allowed to pass. They were loaded on cattle cars and, after six weeks with no food and water, arrived on January 16th in Metz, in occupied France. They were ordered to undress, sprayed with DDT, and sorted. Renia and Henia were sent to the Lampertsmuhle textile factory, near Kaiserslautern, Germany. Renia worked in the weaving section with a young woman from the train, Kaska Lazar. Food was one slice of bread and a ladle of sand-filled soup. By April, Renia’s stomach was swollen from semi-starvation. At some point, her sister received a coded letter from Ivan telling them their mother and brother had been killed. Nine year old David was working as a shepherd and the other boys undressed him to see if he was Jewish and circumcised. He was arrested and Freda, who was hiding in the Kalnikow forest, returned to be with him. They were shot and buried in Dubinka, in a location normally reserved for diseased animals. Kaska created an escape plan to include Renia, Henia, and another friend, Hanka Cholod. Kaska got them permits for a walk outdoors and on May 1, 1942, they walked outside the gates, went to the train station, and boarded a train. Kaska had long blonde hair and blue eyes, and the SS men on the train were not suspicious and just wanted to talk to her. They got off at Nienburg and found a convent where they were given food. While they were eating, the police arrived and they were put in prison. They were interrogated for a week, all saying that they had gone to relieve themselves during a train stop when the train left without them. The authorities decided to send them to work in separate farms in the Bremen region. Renia was sent to the farm of Rebecca Nustedt in Barrien bei Syke. She worked from sunup until late evening and her food had crushed flies and mice droppings. She began to menstruate and had severe cramps, but no knowledge of what was happening to her. She was never allowed to bathe and became so sick that she was sent to a doctor. He gave her purple crystals to wash with and she recovered. Kaska visited once or twice and told her that Henia was working on a farm in the region. In early 1945, the priest’s son, Otto, told her that “the Tommies are coming…they are closing in.” Bombs began to hit closer to the village. On April 8th, British and French troops arrived. The forced laborers gathered at a nearby farm and watched the farm owners raise white flags. There were German soldiers hiding in the nearby fields and there were gun battles. Renia lived in fear, not knowing if more Germans would arrive and recapture the area. She had appendicitis and was taken to an Allied military hospital. After she recovered, a Polish group took her to a camp in Dunsen, Germany, in the British zone, run by UNRRA, the United Nations relief agency. Her Polish was good and she stayed, afraid to be with Ukrainians. She kept her false identity. The camp was disorganized, as the Allies were not set up to handle the millions of refugees. They got canned goods from the Red Cross, but had no can openers. A Catholic priest set up classes to teach the refugees Latin, and asked Renia to convert. A Polish newsletter was started; Renia saw that for them, life was returning to normal. But she felt trapped in a world with no Jews and terrified that her true identity might be discovered. She often heard antisemitic comments in the camp, denouncing Jews as dirty and evil. In April 1946, Henia showed her a newsletter describing a recent massacre of Jews in Poland. They left for Krakow to find other Jewish people and joined Dror, a Zionist youth group. In June, Bricha transported them to the American Zone and a Jewish dp camp in Backnang. Renia was hospitalized and, upon returning, met Henia’s boyfriend, Izak Perel, and his brother, Morris (Moishe). Moishe was born in Mlawa, Poland, in 1921 and had work as forced labor in the Ural Mountains in Russia. Forty of his relatives were killed in the war. In spring 1948, Renia moved to an orphanage in Aglasterhausen to prepare for emigration. That September, she and Henia emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, and were placed in foster homes. Renia and Morris married on December 24, 1950 and had a daughter. Morris passed away, age 78, on November 29, 1999.

The skirt was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Renia Sperber Perel.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Renia Perel

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.